IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(6)

But I was a man who liked to be in charge. I liked to take care of my partners. To provide for them. To know they were safe. And with that came a possessiveness over my partners that could too often be mistaken for emotional attachment. Even though I was up-front with every man I entered into a sexual relationship with that it would never lead to more, invariably they began making demands of me.

Demands I couldn’t fulfill.

That had been the problem with my last partner: he’d wanted more.

He’d wanted something I couldn’t give him: promises. Commitment. Emotion. Even, eventually, love.

The moment I’d realized he wanted more, I’d ended it. In the past, finding a replacement lover had never been difficult. This time, though, nothing had felt right. No one appealed to me. So I’d buried myself in work—in a world where emotions didn’t come into play and where I exercised complete control.

That’s why my response to the stranger’s text had been so surprising. I’d been reckless. Not adhering to my usual need for total control. I didn’t know the man’s name. Where he was from.

He could have been a rival—a corporate raider tasked with taking me and my business down. I cursed under my breath. Sending him a dick pic had been impulsive and stupid and wholly unlike me. With a testy flick of my wrist, I snapped several tissues from the box on my desk and wiped the evidence of my pleasure from my hands. I then yanked my zipper closed and forced my focus back on work.

Before the random text, I’d been reviewing a background file on the woman I was slated to meet with in the morning. She’d invented a new type of biomedical 3-D printer that used hydrogel and biological material to create critical large human blood vessel prostheses, and my company was aggressively negotiating the purchase of the technology.

There were two components to the process: the printer adaptation itself and the medical materials used as the “ink.” Through a clever bit of maneuvering, we’d acquired the rights to the latter the month before. Now I intended to use that as leverage to buy the patents to the former.

Until recently, Dr. Elizabeth Newell, the engineer who’d perfected the mechanics of the printer, had been unwilling to even discuss selling the technology to us. I’d made a reasonable offer and she’d refused. She still hadn’t accepted that now that Grange BioMed owned the rights to the “ink,” either she sold us the printer technology or her invention was useless.

It put my company in an excellent bargaining position. She had no choice but to sell, and at a price well below its value. Usually, once a deal reached this point where all the pieces were in place, I stepped aside and let the lawyers take over. But Dr. Newell had been insistent I remain involved. Perhaps she still hoped to win me over with a personal connection. If so, she hadn’t done her research. There was a reason my nickname was Glacial Grange.

I got what I wanted. And I didn’t make warm fuzzy friends while doing it. For me, emotions didn’t enter the equation.

Speaking of getting what I wanted… my eyes drifted back to my phone. I unlocked it and the screen glowed with the photo of NotSam’s cock, his hand wet with his release. I wondered if he was already asleep, tucked under the generic white hotel comforter. I felt hungry, for some reason. Unsatisfied.

Not sexually—my body still tingled with the afterglow of my earlier orgasm. But there was still something missing somehow. I zoomed in on the picture, scouring the image for details. The dark trail of hair that snuck down his abdomen to his crotch. The curve of his hip and swell of well-muscled thighs. I noticed a trace of scars across his knuckles and wondered if he’d gotten into fights as a kid.

Heat flared in my chest at the thought of him as a young teen, facing off against a wall of bullies. I ground my teeth, anger seething as my inner desire to protect roared to the surface.

And tonight, I thought to myself. He’d asked a total stranger to his room for sex. That was the kind of thing that could have gotten him sick or hurt or robbed. Before I could stop myself, I found myself typing a message to him, asking him what he was thinking. If he understood how reckless he’d been and admonishing him to take better care of himself.

Thankfully I realized what I was doing and stopped myself before I pressed Send. I stared at the words I’d typed, stunned, before quickly erasing them.

I shook my head, scoffing. Why the hell did I care if someone took advantage of this guy? I didn’t. He was a stranger and an adult. Not my responsibility. I forced myself to put the phone down.

I tried returning to work, but thoughts of the anonymous texter kept interrupting until finally I gave up and moved to the sofa to catch a few hours of sleep before the sun rose. I’d spent plenty of nights on the oversized leather piece, and my assistant, Deb, had stashed a pillow and thick blanket in one of the armoire cabinets in the corner of the office for nights like these.

It seemed like I’d barely closed my eyes when I woke to a knock on the office door. “Yeah?” I called out, sitting up and running a hand down my face.

Deb poked her head in. “I figured you’d slept here. Just wanted to let you know it’s almost seven. I’ve ordered you some breakfast. Should be here in twenty. It’ll give you enough time to shower and change. There’s a clean suit in the closet.”

I glanced at her fresh, young face and gave her a smile. “Thanks. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”